The Influence of Gear Hobbing on Worm Gear Characteristics

Abstract

A method is presented for the determination of the influence of gear hobbing on the precision and loaded tooth contact of worm gears. In order to get a worm gear set with fully conjugated teeth surfaces the gear teeth should be processed by a hob whose generator surface is identical to the worm surface. This requirement can be achieved by the use of a hob whose diameter is equal to the worm diameter and with infinite number of cutting edges. But because of the teeth in the hob are relieved, the diameter of the new hob should be slightly larger than the worm diameter to provide tool life. On the other hand, because of the finite number of hob teeth, the gear tooth surface, manufactured by such a hob, is not a smooth surface; it consists of a relatively big number of small parts of helical surfaces formed by the cutting edges of the hob. In this paper a method is presented for the determination of differences between the gear tooth surface processed by an oversized hob of finite number of teeth or by a flying tool, and the theoretically required gear tooth surface. Also the influence of hob oversize and machine tool settings on tooth contact pressure and transmission errors is determined. The full geometry and kinematics of gear tooth processing by an oversized hob or by flying tool is included. The theoretical background is implemented by a computer program. By using this program, the influence of relevant design parameters of worm gear set and hob and of machine tool settings on processed gear tooth errors and on loaded tooth contact of the worm gear pair is investigated and discussed. By another computer program the influence of cutter diameter and machine tool settings for pinion teeth processing on tooth contact pattern in spiral bevel gears is investigated and presented.